


Dance When the Sun Sets

by Zagzagael



Series: The Sun and the Moon [2]
Category: Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-12
Updated: 2013-03-12
Packaged: 2017-12-05 03:00:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,049
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/718108
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zagzagael/pseuds/Zagzagael
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Continuation of "Walk Into the Sunrise". Will be rendered AU after 4x16. </p><p>Caroline spends a day and evening at the Boarding House with Elena, Stefan, and Damon. Klaus gets an invite, too.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dance When the Sun Sets

Not unusual for Mystic Falls, Caroline found out why her mother had never come home the night before after she got to school - the Gilbert family home had been burnt to the ground, embers still smoking, firemen on the scene, and yes, there was a body. Of course. She sat stunned in first period, listening to conversations on every side of her as well as in nearly every classroom, all the hallways, and the teacher’s lounge. She had to get out of there. So, she did. She simply stood up, gathered her things, slung her D&G handbag over her shoulder and walked out into the sunlight.

She thought of Klaus then. How they had spent hours together, ignorant of the fire. How he had walked her home. Curled her fingers into his palm and then pressed his mouth to her knuckles while they stood on her cement stoop. The juxtaposition of her suburban front door and the elegant manners of a 1,000 year old vampire wasn’t lost on her. Or him, either, she supposed after watching him smirk then smile and then disappear into the day they had greeted together. 

Was that really just an hour ago? And what the hell was happening to her head and her heart and, more than that, to her body. She was opened wide with hunger.

And where was Elena? She decided to make her way to the Boarding House and return to Ground Zero of the latest tragedy of their lives.

Stefan opened the door and stepped aside. Damon was on one of the couches and he gave her as sad a look as Stefan had. She nodded to both of them and then climbed the stairs to find her friend. Tucked like it was an afterthought into Damon’s bed, her eyes wide open, staring at nothing, curled in on herself. 

“Oh, Elena.” Caroline crawled into the bed with her.

“It’s okay, Care. I’m just processing. Not feeling.”

“Alright.” She pulled her into a tight and fast embrace, heads on one pillow, silence better than words. “But you shouldn’t be doing it alone.”

The sun climbed higher in the sky and then began to set. They dozed and woke and slept again. And finally roused themselves and went downstairs.

~***~

Caroline is seated on one of the chairs, watching Elena and Stefan and Damon, but mainly Elena. They all have crystal tumblers of bourbon in their hands, because that is, after all, Damon’s tried and true method for dealing with anything. All things. Suddenly she puts her finger on the vague similarity of Elena to someone or someones that has been nagging at her most of the day. 

“Turning off your humanity is like vampire Xanax.” She states this simply, thinking of Jeremy in the immediate devastating aftermath of the Gilbert parents’ deaths and Carol Lockwood in the months after the Mayor was killed. 

Damon barks out a laugh.

“Jenna thought I should be tranqued for a few days after Mom and Dad.” Elena’s voice is quieter than it has been all evening. “But I said no. I didn’t want that. I wanted to feel everything. For it to be real. You know?”

Stefan nods and Damon looks away. 

“I want to dance!” Elena jumps to her feet and fishes her phone out of her front pocket and moves towards the stereo system. Modern and vintage. Damon joins her.

Caroline joins Stefan on the couch. “Have you heard from Rebekah?”

He shakes his head. “I think I’ll call Klaus, see if she’s contacted him. She should be on her way home by now.” He leans back and retrieves his phone from his jean pocket, dialing with a swipe of his thumb. He stands and walks into the wide foyer.

Caroline tries not to listen, it’s only polite after all, but she can’t help herself. Klaus is on the other end of the cellular. Right there. Suddenly Stefan is saying, yes, she’s here actually. And Caroline is on her feet. Behind her Damon and Elena have decided on their set list and the music is very loud and the bass beat infective. Stefan is looking at her and holding his phone out towards her. 

“Hello?” she says softly and she can hear Klaus breathe and her own breath catches in her throat. 

After long minutes she hands Stefan’s phone back to him, casts her gaze away and tells him, “Klaus is coming over here. I hope that’s okay.”

He looks at her with a dark curiosity but only nods. Caroline wonders how much more Stefan can be bent before he breaks. Again. On the Persian carpet in front of the fireplace, Damon and Elena are dancing. Stefan leans against the arm of the sofa and watches them, then disappears down the hallway. 

The door knocks and Caroline moves quickly to open it. Black jeans, a cream-coloured mandarin collared Henley, Doc Marten brogues, Caroline notices everything, even smells his freshly shampooed hair and, she closes her eyes for this, Clive Christian’s “C”. He smirks as though he knows he just passed some kind of Caroline Forbes male-of-worth checklist. 

“Love,” he says. Caroline hears the secret in his voice and nearly blushes.

“I gave at the office.” Damon is at her shoulder, pushing past her, his voice ice. 

Behind them Stefan arrives, he holds up two bottles of Dom, one in each hand. “It’s okay, Damon.”

“Like hell it is.”

Caroline puts one hand on Damon’s arm and he stills but his voice is sharp. “What are you doing here, Klaus?”

“Trying to be worth it,” he says this with a soft finality.

Damon stares at him, brows lowered menacingly over his hard blue gaze. “Fine. Whatever.” And he steps aside. 

 

Caroline, Elena, and Damon are dancing. Caroline loves to dance but tonight she’s struggling to find her center point, the place where her worries slough off like old skin, where the music takes over, where her body fits perfectly into the world. It is an aggravation, an ill-fitting discomfort and the feeling is, frankly, pissing her off.

Something is definitely not making any sense in the interactions between the Salvatore brothers and Elena, but studying them covertly from the corners of her eyes is not revealing the issue. And Klaus is seemingly transforming before her very eyes into someone she wants to know, as though wiping the bloody slate clean is possible. It’s all confusing and complicated and messing with her internal rhythms. She closes her eyes; she’s just going to stop looking so hard, and the music jets through her. She can feel the empowerment of freedom, she raises her hands, rolls her head on her neck, and allows the beat to fill her to the ecstatic point of overflowing.

She dances for song after song, extended house mixes. She dances with Elena, she dances with Damon, Damon moves towards Elena as though fording a river of hallucinogenic. Stefan keeps their glasses full of champagne. He dances with Elena, then Damon dances with his brother and both dance with their lover. Klaus finally climbs to his feet and pulls her into his arms. A modern Hesitation Waltz that spins and steps her out of time. Her hand is tight inside his fist, her other hand gripping his shirt, feeling at the taut muscle of his shoulder, his hand is on her waist and his touch is burning hot.

She is drunk on something that is not champagne. She pulls him to a chair and they sit, together. She is elated with a kind of momentary exhaustion. She is breathless. He still has her hand and is rubbing at her knuckles with his thumbs. She is leaning into his shoulder, he raises his arm and she presses her body home against his chest, closes her eyes and listens to his heart beat. 

The music has stopped and it is an abrupt silence until Caroline opens her eyes and realizes that Elena has turned it off. She turns back towards the room and she is crying. Stefan is by her side instantly and leading her to the sofa. Caroline sits up; she wants to help but is helpless. Klaus puts a hand on the side of her head, reassuring her, pulling her back to him. She refuses this and sits up straighter.

“Elena?” she asks.

Elena simply shakes her head no. Damon lowers himself to the sofa on the other side of her, an arm around her shoulders. She leans her head on him and cries a soundless wailing. Stefan reaches for one of her hands and holds fast. He presses his body against hers and pushes his face into her throat, whispering into her ear, words that Caroline cannot hear. Elena’s face relaxes slightly. Caroline watches as Elena turns and kisses Stefan full on the mouth, his hand on her face, and Damon shifting towards the two of them. Elena breaks the kiss and Caroline nearly falls out of the chair when she watches her lifelong friend kiss the other Salvatore brother, her lips moist with Stefan’s kiss.

“Wait a minute. Wait one minute.” She is on her feet.

The three of them ignore her and Klaus is standing beside her, finding her hand, leading her across the floor and out the front door. He is shushing her confusion, her outrage, his mouth intoxicatingly close to her own. “There are more things in heaven and earth, Caroline.”

They are outside now, the front door closed fast behind them. She is shaking. And steps away from him. 

“What does that mean? You always make me feel so stupid.”

“I don’t want to be your teacher, Caroline.”

“I don’t understand.”

“You are young. There are worlds and worlds out there that you don’t even begin to have an understanding of, a knowledge of. You will, of course. But it’s," he paused, "a slow process. I am not a teacher. I cannot explain these things. I am not Stefan.”

“What was that? What is going on in there?”

He gives her a quiet look. She feels a frisson of something cold and threatening move through her. She reaches out her hands and he takes both, pulling her up against him, and the cold begins to seep away. 

With no warning, her body betrays her and she is on him. Pushing him fast and hard against the front door of the Boarding House. His back hits it and she keeps going, pressing the entirety of herself against him. He is equally as fast as she is once his mind catches up and his embrace is strong and unbreakable and something in that strength softens the steel core of her spine. In his arms she is safe. He bends his knees slightly and she fits perfectly between his thighs. Her hands are everywhere until finally she finds his face and her fingertips slip into his ears, her thumbs in the corners of his mouth and they are kissing. There is no Hollywood moment where their lips very nearly touch, instead, their mouths are desirous and fast and hard. His tongue licks at her teeth and she can feel her fangs lengthening but she doesn’t want him like that. Not now. She is so ravenous, so hungry for him, that she fears she could devour him. And part of her thinks he would let her.

She breathes, a heavy exhalation, and takes control of the kiss. He responds and his hands fall to her hips and pull her even closer to his body, the promise of his flesh and bones and blood. He lets her lead and she feels him gentle between her palms.

“Not here,” she says after time has slowed and it feels as though she has spent years welded to him.

He nods, his face against hers. He doesn’t need to speak for her to know that right now, right at this exact moment, he is hers. He is giving himself over to her completely and she is no fool, she knows if she takes him there will come a time when she must surrender as well, and that afterwards, they will find an even ground where they both can stand. But right now he wants to be her world, unexplored and unknown, but hers alone.


End file.
